Where stronger beasts oppress the weak by might, And all in prey and purple feasts delight. O impious use! to Nature's laws opposed, Where bowels are in other bowels closed; Where, fattened by their fellows' fat, they thrive; Maintained by murder, and by death they live. 'Tis then for nought that mother earth provides The stores of all she shows, and all she hides, If men with fleshly morsels must be fed, And chew with bloody teeth the breathing bread. What else is this but to devour our guests, And barbarously renew Cyclopean feasts! We, by destroying life, our life sustain, And gorge the ungodly maw with meats obscene. Not so the golden age, who fed on fruit, Nor durst with bloody meals their mouths pollute. Then birds in airy space might safely move, And timorous hares on heaths securely rove; Nor needed fish the guileful hooks to fear, For all was peaceful, and that peace sincere. Whoever was the wretch (and cursed be he!) That envied first our food's simplicity, The essay of bloody feasts on brutes began, And, after, forged the sword to murder man. Had he the sharpened steel alone employed On beasts of prey, that other beasts destroyed, Or men invaded with their fangs and paws, This had been justified by Nature's laws, And self-defence; but who did feasts begin Of flesh, he stretched necessity to sin. To kill man-killers man has lawful power, But not the extended licence, to devour. Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas. The sow, with her broad snout for rooting up } The intrusted seed, was judged to spoil the crop, } And intercept the sweating farmer's hope; } The covetous churl, of unforgiving kind, The offender to the bloody priest resigned: Her hunger was no plea; for that she died. The goat came next in order, to be tried: The goat had cropt the tendrils of the vine; } In vengeance laity and clergy join, } Where one had lost his profit, one his wine. } Here was, at least, some shadow of offence; } The sheep was sacrificed on no pretence, } But meek and unresisting innocence. } A patient, useful creature, born to bear The warm and woolly fleece, that cloathed her murderer, And daily to give down the milk she bred, A tribute for the grass on which she fed. Living, both food and raiment she supplies, And is of least advantage when she dies. How did the toiling ox his death deserve, A downright simple drudge, and born to serve? O tyrant! with what justice canst thou hope The promise of the year, a plenteous crop, When thou destroyest thy labouring steer, who tilled, And plowed, with pains, thy else ungrateful field?